Vaughan’s emerging downtown could soon boast an impressive architectural showpiece.
The city’s from-scratch downtown has been rapidly taking shape north of Toronto in recent years, with a growing collection of high-density projects centred around the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) subway station that opened in 2017.
The biggest player in this new downtown is SmartCentres REIT, with the company’s SmartVMC community spanning 100 acres and promising 20 million square feet of residential and commercial space.
SmartCentres is preparing to submit an application with the City of Vaughan for the community’s next big steps with a new master-planned complex on a site known as VMC South Block B4, bounded by the subway station to the east, Highway 7 to the south, New Park Place to the north, and Edgeley Boulevard to the west.
The project team showed off its ambitious plan in a November 30 pre-application presentation to the Vaughan Design Review Panel, where panel members got a glimpse at a striking new collection of buildings from Danish architects 3XN.
The site in question is currently home to the SmartCentres head office, which was formerly a Future Shop and Home Outfitters, as well as the surrounding surface parking.
A trio of 20-storey towers are proposed for the site, along with smaller buildings of 16, 15, 12, and 8 storeys, with a total of 1.8 million square feet of space all organized around a central courtyard.
Two of the blocks were described as “prominent office buildings” in the presentation, one of which would easily become an architectural icon for the area.
At the east edge of the site closest to the subway, a stepped 20-storey office building known as the “gateway” would be constructed as the first phase of the seven-building complex.
SmartCentres recognizes the importance of this site, wedged between a subway station and the future central park that will tie the VMC community together, and went for an internationally acclaimed firm to design a bold visual statement for the community.
“It’s a very prominent site, and we brought in great architects to make sure that we enhanced the architecture to meet the site context,” said Paula Bustard, the executive vice-president of development at SmartCentres, during the presentation.
The heights and densities sought for the block are significantly lower than development proposals on surrounding blocks, with the project team emphasizing open spaces and a porous feel to the complex.
Ashton Stare of 3XN says the firm looked at several key design principles that guided the project, including transit connectivity and a focus on pedestrian and public space.
Stare explained how the buildings are designed to form an inverse peak that allows light to penetrate into the courtyard and reach the park planned to the north.
blogTO reached out to SmartCentres and 3XN seeking additional information about the upcoming proposal, though neither company was available to provide immediate comment in time for publication.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
